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The 'Malgudi Magician': A Profile of R.K. Narayan
Ramesh Avadhani
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R.K. Narayan
The business of the novelist, wrote Graham Greene in A Sort of Life, is the novel, nothing else. No other Indian writer, to my mind, fulfilled this axiom as much as R.K. Narayan. His fifteen novels and five collections of short stories are ample testimony to his passionate intent--to dish up broth after bubbling broth that has as its ingredients the foibles, struggles, and yearnings of simple souls on whom complex circumstances descend.
Narayan draws many of his characters from the Tamil Brahmins of southern India, a community that prides itself as the pinnacle in wisdom and culture gleaned from the ancient scriptures of the Ramayana, Mahabharatha, and Vedas. And the irony that Narayan gently nudges us to see is that his characters have still some way to go to reach those summits!
His stories are set in the fictitious town of Malgudi, which is "almost a day's journey from Madras." Yet it appears to me that any reader in any part of the world would resonate with the thoughts, feelings, and desires of Narayan's characters. It is this universality of emotions simmering in a niche setting (Malgudi), involving a typical community (Tamil Brahmins), that makes the irresistible blend of the common with the exotic.
Simple souls, complex circumstances
As we begin reading Narayan's novels, his protagonists (mostly male) come across as simple souls going about their lives without much fanfare or fuss. Their deportment is one of apparent contentment. Yes, they may be worried by a minor glitch in their trade or profession or a household task that hasn't yet been satisfactorily completed, but Narayan is not in a rush to offer us any clues as to what is to follow. It's the calm before the proverbial storm. A colorful character drops in or a surprising event takes place. Voila, the protagonist is transformed and, one by one, all the other characters touched by him.
From then onward, we are swept along on a roller-coaster ride through the many turbulences that are inevitable when personal desires clash with external obstacles. Sometimes, the characters, while in mid-journey, appear stranded at a dead end, but Narayan merrily invents another character or a situation or backpedals to explain what happened in another time in another place ... and the journey continues.
Swami and Friends was Narayan's first novel. It earned him international acclaim. The hero is ten-year-old Swaminathan, a perplexed boy who struggles to comprehend the adult world about him--the lawyer father, the indulgent grandmother, and the strict teachers. A scene with the grandmother is especially memorable. When Swami begins to boast about his new friend, Rajam, Granny slips in a rambling account about her husband who "... used to frighten the examiners with his answers ... when he passed his F.A. he got such a big medal ..."
"Oh enough, Granny! You go on bothering about old unnecessary stories. Won't you listen to Rajam?"
"Yes, dear, yes."
"Granny, when Rajam was a small boy, he killed a tiger."
"Indeed! The brave little boy!"
"You are saying it just to please me. You don't believe it."
Nevertheless, Swami proceeds to relate Rajam's encounter with the tiger, but Narayan masterfully conveys to us the boy's suspicion that Granny does not believe a word of what he says. The scene is at once both poignant and humorous.
Another chapter that reverberates in my mind deals with Ebenezer, the fanatic Christian teacher at Albert Mission School. Swami rises from his bench to protest against the anti-Hindu tirade unleashed by Ebenezer. The man almost detaches Swami's ear; so violent is the ear twisting. Swami's father shoots off a missive to the principal. Swami is called to the principal's chamber. The chapter ends and I was left panting. Narayan, ever so artfully, delays picking up the thread for the next two or three pages.
Narayan gives us an incident sizzling with the aroma of politics, and the intoxicating effects it has on the little boy. A gathering of citizens starts pelting stones at Albert Mission School because it has not closed for the day. News of the incarceration of a freedom fighter, Gauri Shankar, is all over the town. Later, when the crowd, which has swelled considerably, resorts to burning of Lancashire cloth in public, Swami, after some serious discussion with his friend, Mani, and goaded by someone in the crowd, tosses his cap into the fire. He is exhilarated--he has done his bit for saving India! Swami's father tells him later that the cap was very much Indian, made of handspun cotton. Such are the circumstantial twists and turns that affect young Swami.
As if the vicissitudes that he is already experiencing with his existing friends are not enough, Swami's new friend, Rajam, is a mini-epitome of adult arrogance. This is hardly surprising, as he is the son of the local police chief, a symbol of colonial power. Until the very end, impressionable Swami wants so much to emulate Rajam. The poignant parting, when Rajam, who has not been talking to Swami for some weeks, leaves Malgudi in a train while a heartbroken Swami stands on the platform, demanding to know from another friend, Mani, whether Rajam would ever write letters, is one of the finest closures I have read in a novel.
Other works
Let me mention a few other novels whose themes will remain with you for many years after your reading.
In Vendor of Sweets, there is Jagan the widower, a man of austere habits. He sells sweets for a living and saves enough money to send his only son, Mali, to America for studies. One day, Jagan receives an inkling of the impending horror that is to visit him: Mali is to return to Malgudi with a Korean-American girl, Daisy. Jagan's horror escalates when he finds that the young couple isn't even married.
Or pick up The Man Eater of Malgudi. The printer, Nataraj, even as he works, enjoys listening with half an ear to his friends, who use his office for all kinds of discussions. There is Sen, the journalist, who has scathing comments about Nehru's Plans. Then the Poet, who remains unnamed till the very end, engaged in writing a life of Lord Krishna. While these discussions go on, assorted customers drop in to get invitation cards and the like printed. Into this predictable but enjoyable routine comes Vasu, a taxidermist, who wangles residence in the unused attic above the printing press. Nataraj is unable to say no. As the weeks go by, Nataraj realizes the demonic nature of Vasu--the man is bent upon hunting every animal in the nearby Memphi forests for commercial gain. The plot thickens to the ultimate horror--Vasu wants to shoot down a much-loved temple elephant that is being decorated for a procession. Nataraj is reduced to a nervous wreck trying to figure out a way to stop the treacherous act.
Or you could choose to read Narayan's much-debated novel, his magnum opus, as it were, The Guide. Raju, a flamboyant tourist guide, gets to know Marco the archaeologist, and his wife, Rosie. One day, Raju lends a sympathetic audience to Rosie's dancing in her hotel room (Marco has forbidden her from dancing in public) while Marco is exploring the caves of Memphi. The inevitable happens--Raju and Rosie become lovers. When Marco realizes this, he abandons Rosie. Raju takes over Rosie's life and manages her dance performances all over India. Money pours in and Raju slides into drink and gambling. He gives in to one more temptation and is apprehended. On release from jail, he wanders off into the unknown, only to be chanced upon by local villagers who mistake him for a holy man. What happens next is ... well, I won't spoil it for you.
Much before I chanced upon the novel, I saw its movie version. I was in my teens, then, and was struck by the unusual storyline, the melodious music, and the passionate acting. Imagine my surprise when I came across an interview some years later in which the question was posed to Narayan: Did you like the filmed version of your novel? "They murdered it," came the brusque reply. It was then that I understood how difficult, if not impossible, it is to translate an author's vision and nuances onto the screen. (I strongly suspect that to be also the reason why Arundhati Roy steadfastly refuses offers from around the world to film her Tigerwoodsian debut of a novel, The God of Small Things.)
Founding father
Along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, R K Narayan is regarded as the founding father of Indian fiction in English. To me, what sets Narayan apart is his dexterous weaving of a magical blend of Western technique and Indian substance. He succeeds in a remarkable way in making an Indian sensibility at home in English art. While much of India considers Narayan as its greatest writer in English, it comes as a pleasant surprise that a whole legion of fans abroad consider him as the one of the three greatest writers (Huxley and Greene being the other two) in English literary fiction of the twentieth century. In fact, Graham Greene was singlehandedly responsible for introducing the Indian writer to the rest of the world. Greene and Narayan shared a friendship for more than fifty years via letters and met only once in 1964, in London.
I once asked R.K. Laxman, Narayan's younger brother and cartoonist of The Times of India, in Bombay, as to how much money Narayan made from all his novels. This was after the million-dollar advance Vikram Seth secured for his novel, A Suitable Boy. ''More than all the other Indian writers put together,'' Laxman said with a lofty chuckle.
Yet, all of the foregoing is a superficial appreciation of Narayan's fiction--the core is something else: sad comedies about the human condition. This is one of the most difficult of genres in fiction. Nimbly and deftly, with optimal amount of words and sympathetic tone in langauge, Narayan unravels the universal riddle of the human race--the complex fusion of sincerity and self-deception that we all practice. To write engagingly and dispassionately on such matters requires a sensibility distanced from melodrama and aloofness, a stunningly unified point of view, as well as a strong foundation in a unique social milieu in which the comedy and the pathos are intermingled - neither of them submerging the other. It requires above all, equanimity of the highest order, a temperament that even angels would envy. For that is what RK Narayan aspired to - to accept his own lot that so peaked and troughed all his life, without recourse to self-pity, exaggeration or sentimentality - - his failure in exams, the loss of his wife Rajam after just four years of marriage, the numerous rejections of his early manuscripts, and finally, the loss of his only child, Hema, to cancer, a few years before his own death (May 13, 2001). I am sure that is what he would have liked his countless admirers to also emulate (although he never admitted it so in any of the interviews to my knowledge).
Early Years
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanswami, the third of eight children, was born in 1907 in the coastal city of Madras (Chennai, where the tsunami wreaked havoc) in a Tamil Brahmin family. His maternal grandmother there raised him while the rest of the family lived in Mysore, a small town about three hours drive from Bangalore on the mainland. It was his grandmother who instilled in him a love for classical music and Indian folktales. He was educated at a Lutheran mission and two other Madras schools before his father, a school headmaster, summoned him to Mysore in 1922. A reluctant pupil, prone to daydreaming and completely at sea with arithmetic and other subjects, Narayan himself admits that he was not gifted to pursue the academic line. As if to substantiate this, he failed his University Entrance examinations twice, the first time ironically in English. This provided him with two years of nothing to do but read, muse and savor all that life unfolded about him. College was academically boring but socially absorbing. Many of his friends of the time find their way later into his novels. He graduated in 1930, took up a teacher's job, resigned after just four days, and in September of that year, on a day chosen by his grandmother, opened an exercise book and waited for inspiration to strike. Malgudi steamed into his imagination in the form of a railway platform. The rest we know.
Ramesh Avadhani is a freelance writer based in Bangalore,
India. He has a background in marketing and journalism, and
has had over fifty articles published in India, the United
States, Europe, the United Arab Emirates and Australia. Some
of the diverse publications that have featured his work
include Living Now, Dragonfire, Citizen
Culture, Reptiles Magazine, Gastronomica,
and Woman this Month. He is also a regular
contributor
to Reptilia magazine, and believes writing is the best
of careers: 'You can do it right till the end.'
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